Topeka, Kansas is uniquely positioned to support a wide variety of industries. From professional and financial services to food processing, Topeka and Shawnee County have the resources to help your company thrive.

The Topeka/Shawnee County Small Business Incentive is a matching incentive program that offers small businesses assistance in the areas of employee skills upgrades, equipment purchases and facility construction and renovation.

GO Topeka in partnership with Washburn University and Crimson Corporation formed the Center for Organizational Excellence that offers quality education and consultation services to organizations of all sizes.

The State of Education provides the opportunity to communicate with the community on education. This year, the Greater Topeka Partnership will focus on the efforts in the cradle through career initiative, TogetherTopeka.

Momentum 2022

Momentum 2022 is a comprehensive, actionable, and consensus-based plan to guide the community’s collective actions in the years to come. The project is funded by the Topeka Community Foundation, GO Topeka, Heartland Visioning, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, and United Way of Greater Topeka. The Strategy seeks to make Topeka-Shawnee County a better place to live, work, play, and do business. It addresses the full range of factors that influence the community’s competitiveness – talent, education and training resources, infrastructure, business climate, quality of life, quality of place, and so on.

The implementation committee is being led by the Tri-Chairs: Commissioner Shelly Buhler, Mayor Michelle De La Isla & Keith Warta, Bartlett & West. You can find the full list of the members of the Implementation Committee here. Thank you to the Momentum 2022 investors for continuing to push the community forward with the Momentum 2022 plan.

Quality of Place Funding

JEDO adopted a resolution to award funds for qualified quality of place projects in Topeka and Shawnee County. Please see the file on this page for the full resolution.

To apply for these funds please send a one-page overview addressing all criteria in the resolution to mhowey@gotopeka.com. A panel will review the applications and you will be contacted if you meet the criteria and are selected to move on to the next step. Applicants who meet criteria will be invited to present their idea to the selection panel for further review. Applications are due to GO Topeka no later than October 22. Final awards will be made by JEDO at the December 12, 2018 JEDO meeting.

Project Details

A diverse Steering Committee comprised of representatives from the public, private, and non-profit sectors guided the process and ensured that it lays the foundation that will allow people and businesses to thrive and wealth to accumulate in the community.

The four-phase research and strategic planning process lasted roughly eight months, concluding in March 2017.

Phase 1: Community Engagement

The knowledge and opinions of stakeholders and the public at large are invaluable when identifying the assets to leverage, opportunities to seize, and challenges to overcome. This phase involved reaching out to as many regional stakeholders as possible through an online survey, individual interviews, and focus groups and informed the subsequent phases of the process.

Phase 2: Regional Scorecards and Community Assessment

This phase evaluated Topeka-Shawnee County’s competitiveness as a place to live, work, and do business. It began with an examination of common metrics that influence how external audiences perceive the community. These metrics included a set of “scorecards” that showed how Topeka-Shawnee County compares to other communities. These scorecards were complemented by an in-depth Community Assessment that weaved qualitative and quantitative findings into a set of “stories” that provide a concise narrative of the region’s opportunities and the challenges it will face as it seeks to become a more prosperous, successful place and increase quality of life for all its residents.

Phase 3: Holistic Economic Development Strategy

The third phase brought together the findings and strategic implications from the first two phases to create the Holistic Economic Development Strategy that will guide the community’s collective actions in the next five years. Strategic recommendations within the plan were driven by the research findings – including both qualitative and quantitative feedback. Examples of best practice programs, policies, and initiatives from communities around the country were included when relevant and appropriate to help inform strategic recommendations and their subsequent implementation.

Phase 4: Implementation Plan

If the Holistic Economic Development Strategy represents “what” the Topeka-Shawnee community will pursue strategically, the Implementation Plan helps define “how” GO Topeka and its partners can effectively and efficiently implement the Strategy’s recommendations. For each of the strategic recommendations, the Implementation Plan identified lead implementers, key partners, potential costs, the appropriate timeline for implementation, and metrics for measuring implementation success.